Almost three-fourths of mobile devices returned to carriers and manufacturers in Europe and North America during the fourth quarter were working just fine, according to Blancco Technology Group.
The Alpharetta, Ga., company based its product return findings on internal data collected from millions of iOS and Android smartphones and tablets that underwent diagnostic testing on its SmartChk diagnostic platform in North America, Europe and Asia.
User behavior rather than hardware problems cause “a substantial number of device performance problems, failures and NTF [no trouble found] returns,” the company said.
“The quantity and types of apps being used, app notification settings, location services settings and battery-charging habits are just some examples of how user behavior impacts the day-to-day performance and long-term health of devices,” said CEO Pat Clawson. In Asia, the most frequently used apps are social-networking and messaging apps, he said, and “when these users fail to close the 40-plus apps installed on their devices, it eats into the performance, memory and battery life.”
In other findings in its fourth-quarter State of Mobile Device Performance and Health report, Blancco also found that:
–Android devices accounted for 85 percent of mobile devices with hardware issues, compared with 15 percent for iOS devices.
–Samsung topped the list of Android device makers with the highest failure rate (27 percent), followed by Lenovo (21 percent), Motorola (18 percent), Xiaomi (11 percent) and Asus (8 percent).
–Camera, touch, battery charging, microphone and performance were the top causes of device failures worldwide.
–The increasing usage of emoji and productivity apps in Europe played a contributing role in the increase in device failure rates during the second half of 2015.
